"Think of it this way, the average glass of wine is around 10 - 12% alcohol. If you would drink one glass, there is no way your alcohol level would be equal to the beverage you drank. If that were the case, you'd most certainly drop over dead from poisoning. A mother who is 120 lbs who drank 2-3 glasses of wine over an hour would have an estimated blood alcohol content of between .06% to .10% alcohol. That's significantly less that 10-12%.

The same goes for your baby. If he would drink breastmilk that was .08% alcohol, his alcohol level would be far less than that."

From ABA...
Key points
• Breastfeeding is important for your baby’s physical
growth and emotional and mental development.
• You can have up to 2 standard drinks, but not every
day, once your baby is a month old.
• Breastfeed before you have alcohol.
• Eat before and while you are drinking.
• Plan ahead if you think you may occasionally have
more than 2 standard drinks.
• It is better to give a breastfeed with a small amount of
alcohol than to feed artificial baby milk.
• There are risks in feeding your baby artificial baby milk.

"Conclusion - What is best for baby?

The evidence suggests that for mothers who want to enjoy the odd drink, switching to bottle-feeding is not necessary and may deny your baby the benefits of breast milk.

"Breast milk from a mother, who has the occasional small glass of wine or half a pint of beer (the equivalent of one to two alcohol units) is still superior to formula milk, which does not contain all the immunological and other special properties we know breast milk has," says Wendy.

"If you know your boundaries with alcohol, there is no need to switch to formula," agrees Geraldine. "Just think of all the benefits your baby will be missing out on if you give up breastfeeding during the day - just so that you can have a glass of wine at night."


"Dr. Jack Newman, member of the LLLI Health Advisory Council, states that

"Reasonable alcohol intake should not be discouraged at all. As is the case with most drugs, very little alcohol comes out in the milk. The mother can take some alcohol and continue breastfeeding as she normally does. Prohibiting alcohol is another way we make life unnecessarily restrictive for nursing mothers."

Just some snippets on moderate drinking, there actually isn't that much on heavy drinkers...... but to be honest, with b/f numbers so so low, how many of them are alcoholics?? All the party/drinking girls i know use formula and babysitters, not b/f anyway, although of course there will be the odd exception.

With regards to "stoner" mums, I'll have to search more, but in reality, is that any worse than a cigarette smoking mother who b/f? And there are a lot of mums who do smoke and feed, even while b/f at the same time and blowing smoke ONTO their baby, and no one tells a smoker to not b/f.

It is damn hard to find good research!!!